


Walking Away

by JCapasso



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22991410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Amenadiel convinces his father to let Lucifer leave hell and send him a replacement. Unfortunately, no one consulted Lucifer about that plan.Set after S4E10Warnings: Potential triggers and will NOT have a happy ending.
Comments: 40
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a rather short one unless my muse gets into Lucifer's supply of cocaine. Shouldn't be more than four or five chapters.

Lucifer had been back in hell for about a hundred years by hell time; A little over three years on earth, not that he bothered considering those sorts of things anymore; when he sensed Amenadiel at the gates. He had closed off hell to angels specifically to keep him out. He didn’t want his well meaning brother to try and keep him updated on people he was trying to cut all ties from. He sent his new right hand out to find out what he wanted. He had no intention of talking to his brother himself. 

Vapula returned and handed him a note, knowing better than to broadcast his business aloud in public. He opened the note and read it quickly. “Well, it seems as though Mazikeen is ready to return home,” he told those present. “I will return soon.” He got up and flared his wings, turning on his heel and flying back to earth. 

He followed his senses to Maze and landed right beside her. He took in the rest of the people in the room quickly before dismissing them and turning to Maze. “Are you ready to go?” 

“What do you mean?” Maze asked confused. 

“I’m afraid I misled you brother,” Amenadiel told him. “When the demon would not allow me to speak with you, I needed to tell him something that would get you here.”

“Vapula was following my orders, brother,” Lucifer sneered the last word. There was nothing he hated more than being lied to and manipulated, and his brother had just done both. 

Amenadiel wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he just continued with what he wanted to say. “I have good news for you, Luci.”

“What kind of good news?” Lucifer asked, intentionally not looking at anyone else, and so not noticing the tears in Chloe’s eyes at the clear dismissal. 

“I have convinced Father that your punishment should be lifted. He has agreed to send someone to take your place in hell whenever you ask,” Amenadiel told him. 

“I appreciate the thought,” Lucifer told him honestly. “But no thank you. I’m fine where I am.” 

“Please Lucifer,” Chloe said. “You don’t have to go back now. You can stay here…with me.” 

Lucifer finally turned to look at her for the first time. “No. I can’t,” he said sadly, eyes shining with emotion. 

“What…wh-why not?” she asked, eyes filling with tears. She had waited so long for this day. To see him again. To tell him he could come home, and now he was refusing. 

“I really don’t want to go into it,” Lucifer said. 

“Why not?” Chloe asked again, more firmly. “You said you loved me.” 

“I did. And I do. That’s why I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to,” Lucifer told her gently, trying to extricate himself from this situation with a minimum of fuss. 

“Well you’re already hurting me, Lucifer, so don’t you think you at least owe me an explanation of why?” she snapped. 

“You really want to get into this? Here?” he asked gesturing to their audience, who were politely keeping quiet. 

“Yes. I do, Lucifer. You can’t just do this to me again. Just disappear without an explanation.” 

“Very well,” he said steeling himself for the most difficult conversation he would ever have in his life. “Do you know what the very worst day of my entire existence has been?”

Chloe looked confused. “I don’t know. When you fell maybe? What does that have to do with…”

She was cut off by a harsh laugh. “No, detective. The worst day in hell doesn’t even begin to compare with how I felt the day I found that vial in your purse and found out what you were planning to do to me. I tried to put it behind me. To move on like it never happened, but the more I tried to bury it the worse it got.” 

“I-I’m sorry Lucifer. You know that. I was just afraid, but I’m not afraid anymore.”

“You should never have been afraid of me in the first place,” he yelled, before forcing himself to calm down. “You had known me for years. You knew me better than anyone else. We were partners. I had put my life on the line countless times to help you. To protect you. To save you. I sacrificed /everything/ for /you/. And you proved how little that mattered.”

“It was a mistake, Lucifer, and I’m so sorry. It’s just everything I read…all those stories…”

“Scary stories written by people who’d never even met me,” Lucifer snapped. “Stories written by desperate incompetents who needed a scapegoat for all their problems so piled it all on my shoulders.”

“But even the bible…”

“Ah yes. The bible. Written by humans, by the way, but even then…what exactly does the bible said I did hmm? Rebelled against heaven and gave Eve a fruit. Oh yes. That makes me so horribly evil,” Lucifer said irritated before turning back to her with a heartbroken look. “You knew /me/ detective. And you believed fictional stories over me. I do love you, Chloe. More than you could know. But how could I ever trust you again after that? You tried to kill me. You conspired behind my back to send me back to hell, and even worse…you used my feelings for you to do it.”

“Lucifer, I…” 

“No. I don’t need to hear more excuses. Do you have any idea what it was like to finally have hope? Hope that I could be happy for once in my miserable existence. Hope that someone actually saw me for /me/ and accepted me for it. And then to learn that it was all a lie. Something in me broke that day, detective. Something that can’t be fixed, no matter how much I may want it to be. No matter how hard I tried to ignore it.” 

Chloe had tears streaming down her face now, and she couldn’t deny anything he’d said. “Okay. I get that. And I understand if you don’t want to be with me. I do. But that doesn’t mean you have to go back to hell. You don’t deserve to be there,” she begged. She didn’t know if she could take it if he went back to literal hell because of her. He deserved to have a life here even if he didn’t want her in it. 

“Don’t you get it, detective? I can’t come back. Not now. It’s too hard. I know what it’s like to feel now. I know what all those people out there are looking for and finding, and I can’t just sit up here and watch people go through their happy lives anymore. There are too many memories. Too much pain. There is nothing for me here now. There is only one place left for me to go.” 

“Please. Lucifer. I love you,” Chloe begged one last time. 

“And I love you, Chloe. I hope you have a wonderful life, and a happy afterlife in heaven. I really do. Just forget about me and move on. Goodbye,” he said softly, as the tears finally fell from his eyes. 

“Lucifer, wait!” Linda called, as he disappeared. She had stayed out of it, and kept Maze out of it, wanting to give them a chance to talk things out before the rest of them tried, but she was too late. 

Now that Linda wasn’t holding her back anymore, Maze snapped, blade instinctively falling into her hand in anger. “What was he talking about?” she asked Chloe coldly. “What did you do to him?” 

Chloe fell to her knees, unable to hold herself up anymore, and she wrapped her arms around her middle as if to hold herself together as she spilled the entire story. Even the perfect date they’d had and how she tried to drug him but accidentally spilled the wine instead. How she backed out at the last minute but he found out anyway. 

Amenadiel gave her a disgusted look before he turned to Linda. “I’ll go after him. He won’t have gone back to hell yet. He wouldn’t let the demons see him like that. He’s gone somewhere to calm down first,” he said before disappearing. 

Maze moved faster than any of them could see, grabbing Chloe’s hair and pulling her head back, hell-forged blade at her throat. “If you weren’t so pathetic right now, I’d be tempted to kill you. But Lucifer’s been hurt enough thanks to you,” she sneered, getting herself back under control and letting go. “But let me tell you a few things about Lucifer that you may not know. I watched him kill his own brother to protect you. Do you have any idea what that did to him? How much it ripped him apart? But he did it for YOU. When you were poisoned, he literally killed himself to go down to hell and get the antidote from the guy who made it and he got trapped in his own hell because of his guilt over killing his brother. We almost didn’t get him back, and he KNEW that was a risk, but he didn’t hesitate or let anyone talk him out of it because saving YOU was more important to him. When he found out that being around you made him vulnerable, I tried to talk him into letting me kill you to solve the problem. Not only did he refuse, but he wouldn’t even stop working with you, and you know why? Because he would have rather died than never see you again. I thought it made him weak, but I eventually figured it out and I wish I hadn’t. Because now I understand just how badly you broke him, and knowing what he must be going through…to prefer HELL…you disgust me, Decker,” she spat on the floor in front of the sobbing woman and stormed into her room, coming out a minute later with a bag. 

“Maze, where are you going?” Linda asked worriedly. 

“To Lux. Hopefully I can catch Lucifer before he leaves and get a ride home,” Maze said slamming the front door behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

Linda had a lot to say to Chloe herself, but couldn’t bring herself to pile it on right now, so she just sighed and sat down. She was tempted to leave but two things stopped her. First was the fact that Amenadiel would be back here looking for her soon enough. Second was the fact that her professional ethics wouldn’t let her leave someone in Chloe’s condition, no matter how much she deserved it. While she waited, she tried to come up with a plan of action. 

Lucifer was out of her reach or would be soon. Even for a normal patient it would take years of therapy to get over something like this and Lucifer was far from normal. She knew that getting him to sit down and talk with her now, even once, would be impossible. Maybe if she’d found out about it right away she might have had a chance, albeit a slim one, but now? It was too late. He had shut himself down and everyone out and he was heading somewhere that she couldn’t even chase him down to get him to talk. Her only hope was that Amenadiel could talk him into staying, but she knew that it was a long shot at best. 

As much as she wanted to stop Maze from going, she couldn’t bring herself to. Lucifer needed someone by his side who understood. Someone who could hopefully keep him from backsliding all the way. She would miss her best friend desperately. Especially since her friendship with Chloe would be over now too. She would treat her on a professional level if asked, but she couldn’t stay friends with her after what she’d done. Lucifer was right. If anyone should have known that he wasn’t evil it should have been Chloe. She knew that she had freaked out when she found out the truth too, but that had been relatively early on. She hadn’t known him as well, and even she would never have gone so far as to try to kill him. Especially not using his feelings as a weapon like that. That was unconscionable, and that was the part she could never forgive her for. Freaking out was understandable. Dangling everything he ever dreamed of in front of him to lure him into a trap, was a whole different story. 

Chloe still hadn’t pulled herself together by the time Amenadiel came back looking like he’d gone ten rounds with a mac truck. “Amenadiel!” she gasped rushing over to him and leading him to the couch. “Are you okay? What happened?” 

“Lucifer…strongly objected to my actions,” Amenadiel explained, pushing her hands away from his face gently. “I am fine,” he assured her. 

“More information please?” Linda asked. 

“I found him at Lux. Drinking heavily. He berated me for lying to him and manipulating him to get him up here. I attempted to talk him into staying and made the mistake of pulling his bottle from his hand. He took great offense,” he explained. 

“How is he?” she asked worriedly, wondering how bad he fared in the fight. 

“He is uninjured if that’s what you mean. I saw no sense in fighting back. He was simply lashing out from pain,” Amenadiel told her. When she looked torn between being angry with Lucifer and being sympathetic, he added, “It’s all right, Linda. He owed me one anyway. When he burned his first set of wings, I did the same to him and he didn’t fight back then either.”

Linda sighed and nodded, turning her sympathy to both of them. She knew how brothers could be after all. Especially these two. “So he still refuses to stay?” she asked sadly. 

“He does. I don’t think anyone could get him to change his mind.”

“Maze went after him too. She’s going to go back with him if she can catch him in time,” Linda told him. 

“She should hurry then. He seemed about ready to leave when I left,” Amenadiel told her. “If she misses him I’ll drop her at the gates. They’ll let her in.” 

“Thank you,” Linda told him. “I’ll miss Maze, but I’ll feel better knowing that he has someone with him that understands what he’s going through.”

“As will I,” Amenadiel agreed. “Though she will not try to talk him into forgiveness,” he pointed out. 

“No. She won’t. But at least he won’t be alone,” Linda said, taking all the small victories she could. 

Chloe took that moment to pull herself together enough to croak out, “Amenadiel…Linda…I’m so…so sorry.”

Amenadiel glared at her. “I have nothing to say to you,” he said coldly before turning to Linda. “We should go. It’s almost time to relieve the babysitter anyway.” 

Linda nodded and followed him out, but not before leaving her card on the table, hoping that Chloe would take the hint. As much as she would like to refer her to another therapist, she was the only one who knew the whole story, so she was the only one who could help and her professional ethics wouldn’t allow her to turn her away. 

Maze rushed up to the penthouse about five minutes after Amenadiel left. “Lucifer!” she yelled hoping she hadn’t missed him. 

“I’m still here Mazikeen. No need to shout,” he said coming out of the bedroom with his phone. “If you’ve come to convince me to stay…”

“No. I want to go with you. It’s time for me to go home,” she cut him off. 

“Very well. I…” he cut himself off and held up a hand to keep her quiet as he turned his attention to the phone. “Yes. Thank you,” he said before hanging up. “Just making sure my investments are protected in my absence,” he explained. “Are you ready?” he held out a hand to her and she hoisted her bag further on her shoulder and stepped closer. Lucifer picked her up and flew away, landing back in hell a few minutes later. 

“Thank you Vapula for standing in for Mazikeen in her absence,” Lucifer said dismissing her and leaving Maze’s old position open for her again. He smirked at Maze as he waved his hand to his side in invitation. 

She smirked back and stepped forward, taking position to the right of the throne as he sat back down. All was as it should be again. Things would soon get back to normal and stupid traitorous humans would be just a fading memory. 

Chloe managed to pull herself off the floor eventually and made it to the couch. She was halfway presentable by the time Dan brought Trixie home that night, but he still noticed that something was wrong and asked her what it was. She had no idea how to begin explaining it to him so she just blew him off. Told him it was nothing and she’d be fine. She knew that she would never be fine again. She could have had it all. Everything she ever dreamed of if she hadn’t been so stupid. Lucifer was right. Maze was right. She deserved everything that was happening to her now. 

Once she got Trixie in bed, she went to her own bed and thought back to everything that had happened since that fateful day. The worst one of his existence, and the worst one of hers too. He had walked away from their partnership for good reason, but as soon as she called him for help, he dropped everything and came running. She hadn’t missed how he’d positioned himself between her and the gun when the bomber had come into the club later and had gotten shot because of it. He’d almost died. 

She considered how he’d thrown himself into his relationship with Eve and she got it now. It had never been about Eve. He’d been trying to replace her with someone who actually accepted him, except it turned out that Eve didn’t. Eve accepted his bad side and she had accepted his good side, but neither of them accepted all of him and they had been pulling him in two different directions. It was no wonder he snapped and went full demon. It had never been about not forgiving himself. He had hated himself because he thought that he wasn’t worthy of love. Because the two people who could have loved him kept tearing him apart. It hadn’t been his willingness to forgive himself that had turned him back. It had been her willingness to tell him he deserved it for both the good and bad. Apparently, it had been too late though. 

She had thought they’d worked past it, but he’d just been burying it and she should have seen it then. She should have known that he couldn’t get over a betrayal like that so easily. Like her jumping on him to shield him from that explosion could ever even begin to make up for any of it. She remembered the look on his face when he’d found out. It had haunted her ever since, and would haunt her for the rest of her life. He had looked so broken, but then when he’d seemed to be over it she just counted her blessings and carried on. 

The incredulous laugh he’d given her when she told him that she loved him made more sense now. She’d thought it was just because of the fact that she’d said it at all. That she felt it when he didn’t think he deserved it, but she got it now. He was telling her that it was too little too late. Then he’d kissed her like he would never get the chance to again, and she knew now that it had less to do with him leaving and more to do with him walking away. She ended up crying herself to sleep that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next couple weeks, Chloe seemed to spiral. She was taking stupid chances in the field, looked like she wasn’t sleeping or taking care of herself and Ella was getting worried. Chloe just brushed off anyone who wanted to talk to her, so Ella decided to call in the big guns. When she got off work that night, she called Linda. “Hey, Linda. You busy?” Ella asked. 

“Not right now, no. Charlie just went down for the night. What’s up?” she asked. Ella had never been a particularly close friend, but after two weeks with no friends at all beyond Amenadiel she was happy to get her call. 

“Yeah, I’m worried about Chloe,” Ella told her. 

Linda set her jaw and took a deep breath. “I know. She’s in a bad place. I left her my card, but I can’t force her to take me up on the offer.”

“Yeah. Okay. I get that. But maybe a girl’s night with some friends would help?” Ella suggested. 

“I’m sorry, Ella. I will be her therapist if she needs one because that’s my job, but I can’t be her friend anymore,” she admitted. 

“What? Why? What happened?” Ella asked. 

“I found out that she did something unforgivable,” Linda told her. 

“What was it?” Ella asked shocked, wondering what could possibly be that big. 

“I really shouldn’t say,” Linda told her. As much as part of her wanted to be spiteful, she didn’t know if she wanted to take away what was probably Chloe’s last friend. 

“Please? Just tell me something? Something that I can use to at least get her talking to me. I just want to help her,” Ella pleaded. 

Linda sighed. “All I will say is that there is a very good reason Lucifer is gone.” 

“She didn’t kill him did she?” Ella suddenly asked in a horrified whisper. Normally she wouldn’t have even considered it, but under the circumstances and since she had looked for him for months and he seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth, it had to be asked. 

“She might as well have,” Linda said shortly. 

“Right. Okay. I’ll see if I can get her talking from that. That doesn’t mean that you and I can’t still be friends though, right?” Ella asked hopefully. 

Linda let out a relieved chuckle. “No. It doesn’t. It’ll be nice to have a friend again.”

“Wait...what happened to Maze?” Ella asked confused as to why Linda was talking like she’d lost them all. 

“When we found out what happened, she went after Lucifer,” Linda told her. 

“Right. Gotcha,” Ella told her. It made sense. Lucifer and Maze had always been creepy close. She didn’t really get it, since there didn’t seem to be anything romantic between them, but it wasn’t her place to judge. “Hey how about drinks at Lux, Saturday night. We can toast Lucifer wherever he is.” 

Linda laughed. “That sounds perfect,” she agreed. “Seven?” 

“Sure thing. And feel free to bring Amenadiel too,” Ella said hanging up and heading to Chloe’s house. It was time for an intervention. 

Ella gasped when Trixie opened the door and let her in. It seemed like it was past time for an intervention. The house was a mess and a half, there were old plates covered in half eaten moldy food everywhere, clothes hanging off every surface, and even Trixie seemed down in the dumps. Ella went into damage control mode. “Right. First things first, we need to get some cleaning up done,” she told Trixie. “Why don’t we turn on some music and have a dance party while we clean okay?” 

Trixie nodded happily and went to turn on the radio. Ella set Trixie to picking up all the clothes and filling up the washer while she started on the dishes. She had just finished getting the last of the dishes to the counter to be scraped off into the trash when Chloe stumbled downstairs, glass of something Ella suspected was scotch in her hand looking very drunk and wearing a shirt that, if she had to guess, she would say was Lucifer’s. “Trix, do you have to play the music so lo…Ella!” She cut herself off. “What are you doing here?” 

“I was worried about you. And it seems I had a right to be,” Ella said, passing worried and going to downright alarmed. Ella went over and grabbed her arm. “Come on. Let’s get you a nice hot bath to relax while I get everything cleaned up and then we can talk. Okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Chloe slurred, pulling her arm away from Ella and stumbling, sloshing her drink. 

“No. You’re really not,” Ella told her. “Please? For me?” 

Chloe sighed and slung an arm over her shoulder. “You’re a really good friend you know?” she slurred again, letting Ella lead her to the bathroom. 

“I know,” she said with a tense smile as she started the bathwater. She left Chloe sitting on the toilet waiting for the tub to fill up as she went to start straightening the bedroom, finding more of Lucifer’s shirts strewn around, a lot of empty bottles that looked like the fancy ones that Lucifer always kept in his penthouse, and more dirty dishes. She threw the clothes in the hamper and put the bottles and dishes on the dresser to take downstairs before checking the tub and helping Chloe into it. 

“Hey!” Chloe called. “Can you get me a refill before you go?” she asked, holding out her glass. 

Ella sighed. She knew that refusing would just make things worse, but didn’t want Chloe getting any more drunk, but she nodded and took the glass, put a little bit of the open bottle of scotch in it and slipped into the other bathroom to put water in the rest. Chloe was drunk enough already that she probably wouldn’t even notice. After delivering the glass she took the dishes, bottles, and hamper down in four trips, scraped all the food off the dishes into the trash which Trixie then took out to the dumpster, and filled both sinks up with hot soapy water and set as many of the dishes as she could to soaking. It would take more than one session to get all the dishes clean, unfortunately. Once they were soaking, she went to start the washing machine before Trixie helped her start wiping down the counters and tables. Once that was done she put the first load of dishes in the dishwasher now that they weren’t crusty anymore and started it while the next load was soaking. By that time it was Trixie’s bedtime, so Ella got her changed into unfortunately dirty pajamas that she resolved to fix tomorrow, and into bed. “Are you gonna fix my mom?” Trixie asked hopefully as Ella tucked her in. 

“I’m gonna try, kiddo,” Ella promised. 

Trixie gave her a hug with tears in her eyes and said a heartfelt, “Thank you.” Ella hugged her back, wishing she could fix everything overnight, but knowing that she couldn’t. 

She brewed a quick pot of coffee and headed back upstairs with the whole pot and a cup for Chloe to hopefully try and sober her up. She knew that she might be more willing to talk while she was drunk, but also knew the coffee would take a while to kick in. She helped Chloe out of the tub and since she’d taken the shirt that Chloe had just taken off, Chloe went to the closet and grabbed another of Lucifer’s shirts to wrap herself in and a pair of sweatpants, before falling into the bed. Ella sat her back up, handed her a cup of coffee and sat down next to her before saying, “Now talk, girlfriend.” 

“Nuh,” Chloe protested, shaking her head. 

“Come on. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You have to let someone in. I know it has something to do with Lucifer and why he left. Linda told me that much, now you fill in the blanks,” Ella prompted. 

“Linda…she hates me now. Amenadiel too. And Maze. Probably even Charlie even he knows what hate is yet,” Chloe slurred drunkenly. 

“And Lucifer?” Ella prompted. 

“No, Lucifer doesn’t hate me. Wish he did. Maybe it’d be easier. No, Lucifer loves me. Even after…after what I did.” 

“If he loves you then where is he?” Ella asked confused. 

“Loves me…doesn’t trust me…can’t trust me…I betrayed him,” Chloe slurred. 

“Why? What happened?

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Chloe told her sadly, opening the drawer of her nightstand and grabbing another bottle, abandoning the coffee. 

Ella sighed and let her have the bottle for now. They could switch back to coffee once she had the whole story. “Of course, I’ll believe you. You believed me about my ghost friend,” Ella reminded her. 

Chloe snorted, but had to share with someone before she exploded, though that could have been the alcohol talking. “I found out that Lucifer is the devil. Like the really real Lucifer from the bible and everything,” she said waiting for the disbelief.


	4. Chapter 4

Ella just blinked for a minute. She hadn’t seen that one coming. Normally she might not have believed it but this was Chloe they were talking about, and she was hurting badly and wouldn’t make up something like that at a time like this. “Okay. So he’s the real devil. That does explain a lot.”

“See that’s how I should have reacted,” Chloe said, waving her arms and sloshing some of the booze from the bottle. 

“How did you react?” Ella asked. Surely people would have expected and understood a little freakout so there had to be more to it than that if even Linda had walked away.

“I ran away. To Rome. Found a priest to help me send him back to hell. Pretended to accept him and date him so I could slip a devil strength sedative in his drink to give us a chance to,” Chloe said quickly before taking another swig. Unfortunately neither of them noticed Trixie listening at the door before she ran away after hearing that. 

“Oh. Wow,” Ella said. She got it now. Why everyone was so mad at her. She was too, really, but she was really Chloe’s last friend in the world and she wasn’t going to abandon her like that. 

“I chickened out before I did it. Spilled the wine when I was trying to drug him and changed my mind before I got another chance, but he found out anyway. Tried to walk away, but I kept dragging him back. I should have just let him go. Maybe then he wouldn’t be back in hell now,” She sobbed. 

Ella pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back and waited until she calmed down before asking, “If you didn’t send him back to hell then why is he back there?” 

“Demons came to earth to get him. He wouldn’t go. They took Charlie instead. Once we got the baby back he said he had to go back to keep them from coming for him again and hurting the rest of us. I told him I loved him and begged him not to go. He…he said he loved me too and then said goodbye and then he was just gone.”

“Okay, but this was a few years ago. How did all this come back up now?” Ella asked curiously. 

“Amen’diel convinced God to let him leave and send another king to hell and tricked Lucifer into coming back so we could tell him. He said no. Told me that it hurt too much to be here now that he knows how to feel things. He loves me but can’t trust me. Can’t be around me. He went back. Won’t leave again. Th-that’s how everyone found out.”

Ella nodded. She had the whole picture now. At least the important parts she was pretty sure. Yeah, what Chloe did was bad, but she was obviously punishing herself enough without piling any more on. “Look, I’m no stranger to making mistakes, and yeah, this is a big one, but you can’t let it ruin the rest of your life.”

“Why not? It ruined his,” Chloe asked taking another swig from the bottle before Ella grabbed it from her hand and set it on the nightstand that Chloe couldn’t reach. Ella reached around her and grabbed the abandoned cup off coffee from beside her and handed it over. Chloe tried to give it back, but Ella wouldn’t take it. 

“No, Chloe. You drink that now,” she said firmly before getting back to the issue at hand. “Even if your mistake did ruin his life, that doesn’t mean it has to ruin other people’s. Do you even know what you’ve been doing to Trixie these last few weeks?” She tried a different tact. 

Unfortunately, it backfired and Chloe broke down in tears again. “I’m a horrible person AND a horrible mother,” she wailed. 

Ella sighed and pulled her into another hug, pushing the cup of coffee to her lips to get her to drink. “No, you’re not. You’re just hurting right now. Trixie is just worried about you. She doesn’t hate you. What you need is a good night’s sleep, and then we can start fixing things in the morning okay?” 

Chloe nodded and finished the cup of coffee at Ella’s urging before she let Ella tuck her in. Once that was done Ella stepped outside the room and sighed heavily, heading back downstairs to empty and refill the dishwasher and the washing machine and put the first load of clothes in the dryer. By the time she passed out on the couch around one AM, three loads of laundry were done and folded and the fourth and last load was in the dryer, all the dishes were done and put away, and the house actually looked clean again. 

The next morning, Ella and Trixie had breakfast together so that Chloe could sleep a little longer. Trixie seemed a lot happier now that the house was clean and her and Ella watched the Saturday morning cartoons together. All that changed when Chloe came downstairs though and Trixie just glared at her and went to her room and slammed the door. Ella looked confused between Chloe and the closed door. Trixie hadn’t seemed mad last night so what changed?

When Trixie refused to let Chloe in, Ella asked if she could try and Trixie let her in immediately, making Chloe feel even worse. When Ella came out about twenty minutes later she had an apologetic look on her face. “Apparently, she overheard us talking last night about why Lucifer left. She’ll come around though,” Ella assured her. Chloe wasn’t so sure. 

Ella stuck around most of the day, trying to help out, but Chloe kept her brave face on and assured Ella that she would be okay, thanked her for pulling her out of it, and sent her on her way in the late afternoon, so Ella kept her drinks date with Linda and Amenadiel, choosing not to say anything about Chloe. Lucifer was Amenadiel’s brother so it made sense that they were totally on his side. After a few drinks though she did ask Amenadiel if he was really an angel and got the lowdown on the whole heaven and hell thing. 

Once Ella left, Chloe tried one more time to get through to Trixie before giving up and going back upstairs to hit the bottle again. Ella had dumped the one she had taken last night, but there were still a lot more hidden. When Ella called the next day to check on her, Chloe managed to not sound drunk and assured Ella that she was good and she would see her at work the next day. Over the course of the week, Chloe managed to put on a brave face at work in small part due to having an abundance of makeup covering the dark circles under her eyes and enough clean clothes to last thanks to Ella, but at home it was a different story. Trixie still wasn’t speaking to her, which meant she was hitting the bottle just as badly, and by Saturday the house looked just as bad as it had when Ella had gotten there last weekend. 

Unfortunately, Ella had a family emergency this weekend and for the next week when her grandmother died and she had to fly home to Detroit so she wasn’t able to stop by to check on Chloe, but did keep in touch by phone, and was assured that everything was fine. On Thursday, Chloe came home to find Dan sitting on the couch in the disaster that was the house waiting for her. 

“Dan? What are you doing here? Where’s Trixie?” she asked worriedly. 

“Trixie’s in the car,” he said sadly and handed her a stack of papers. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I’ve tried to help you, but you just keep shutting me out. I don’t know what more I can do and I can’t let you keep hurting our daughter like this.”

“What are you saying, Dan?” Chloe asked almost hysterical. “I got a text from Trixie yesterday, begging to come live with me. When I got here this afternoon to talk to her, a social worker was already here. I didn’t call them. I promise. But their decision was final. I have temporary custody. I’m willing to help you get yourself back together so we can fix this but you have to let me in,” Dan said, trying to be patient and understanding until a glass was throw at his head with a scream and shattered on the wall behind him when he ducked, so he just got up and left. 

As soon as he was gone, Chloe fell to her knees in the middle of the living room as sobs wracked over her again. She had lost everything. By the time Ella got back Saturday night, it was too late. She found Chloe dead in her bed from alcohol poisoning. 

A few weeks later, Lucifer was walking around checking on the new arrivals when he stopped short at one of the doors and sighed sadly. He’d never wanted her here, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Given what happened the last time he saw her, he knew that going in there would just make it worse for both of them, especially when he saw that her hell loop was about her betrayal of him, so he just shook his head and kept walking.


End file.
